Regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens is best known for creating some of the world's best known fictional characters who feature in his most popular novels, including The Artful Dodger in 'Oliver Twist', Ebenezer Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol', and Miss Havisham in 'Great Expectations'. Dickens' timeless novels and short stories are still widely read today and many have been adapted into countless TV programmes and films including the Academy Award-winning musical 'Oliver', and 'A Christmas Carol' which is well known worldwide and is a huge favourite movie for families to watch together at Christmas time. London-born Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) became known in Victorian England for his novels and plays, sometimes writing with Charles Dickens. His most famous works, "The Woman in White" (1859) and "The Moonstone" (1868), are examples of the first modern detective novels.